


And Other Tales

by Miss_Snazzy



Series: In Which Modern Characters Frolic in Thedas [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Wings, Blood and Injury, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Conditioning, Discrimination, Drinking, Gen, Gun Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Misunderstandings, Modern Girl in Thedas, Original Character Death(s), Past Domestic Violence, References to Drugs, Slavery, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-11 13:15:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7053256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Snazzy/pseuds/Miss_Snazzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short and mostly unfinished Modern OC in Thedas tales which might mutate into stories of their own...<br/>Reader interest and/or author motivation pending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Basement AU: Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein the wall between two different realities thins enough to allow Fenris and Helena to take solace in each other during their imprisonment.
> 
> Timeline: Post Alone Quest (DA2, Act 3) and an AU of The Spirit Girl.

A door slams and Fenris stares at the hunched form across the room.  He wonders what it will be today—her colorful cursing or that odd humming.

One arm curls around her midsection as she eases herself up.  Though her cheek leaves the strange stone beneath her, she remains sprawled forward on her other hand.

Fenris listens to her wheeze and finds he almost misses the usual noise.  He huffs out a sigh.

"Straighten your back and lean against the stone."

Fenris watches her tense and frowns.  Had she heard him?

"It will aid in your breathing," he continues.

Her face tilts up and she meets his gaze for the first time.  The shock slips into a vacancy he finds disconcerting, if only for his own familiarity with the expression.

"And now I'm hallucinating.  Great."  She huffs but uncurls, shuffling backwards to the wall behind her.

Fenris frowns.

"I am no apparition."

She leans her head back, gaze settling on the ceiling.  Her arm remains wrapped around her abdomen.  A broken rib, Fenris surmises.

"Sure."  She sighs.  "If you're real, then why aren't you screeching 'demon' at  me, yet?"

"I do not screech."

She seems to concede that point with a nod.

She stretches out her legs in front of her, hissing when she puts weight on her left foot during the adjustment.  Fenris wonders if the ankle or the arch ails her this time.

"So..." 

Fenris glances up to find her gaze settled on him, even as her head remains tilted back. 

"You don't think I'm a demon?"

Fenris follows the trail of blood from her temple into her hair.  He remains uncertain whether the shade is a natural dark or an indication of how much blood she has lost...or taken.

"I have not ruled it out."

Fenris watches her blink.

"Oh.  Right.  Makes sense."

She closes her eyes and Fenris listens to the near whistle of her breath.  He wants to tell her to stop exposing her jugular.

Fenris says nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is pretty much just a pit I'm chucking all my half-cocked MGIT stories into.  
> Let me know (below) if you'd like to see more of any of these...and you just might.


	2. The Basement AU: Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein the wall between two different realities thins enough to allow Fenris and Helena to take solace in each other during their imprisonment.
> 
> Timeline: Post Alone Quest (DA2, Act 3) and an AU of The Spirit Girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for gun violence and implied/referenced domestic violence.

Fenris doesn't know what it is, but it makes her docile.

When the man comes, she favors caution, the stone at her back, arms half-raised at her sides, but gaze always focused on him.  She counters every movement with one of her own, evading his attacks before they can become so.

But the walls push close and these steps last only as long as the man remains willing to indulge them.

His grip sends her into a flurry of movement each time—punches and jabs and vicious kicks and vicious teeth around thick fingers until—well.

Fenris doesn't know what it is, but he knows a weapon when he sees one.

The man presses the smooth, metal weapon to her temple and she stills.

The man chuckles.

"You ready to listen now?" the man asks.

She doesn't speak.  Fenris doesn't think she dares to breathe.

"You better fucking answer me," the man snarls, pressing the metal harder into her temple.

A distinct click follows and she gasps.

"Yes!  Yes!  I'm fucking listening, okay?" she yells, recoiling.

The man pulls back his armed hand and strikes her across the cheek with the metal.  The blow sends her to her knees, and Fenris watches her cough up blood.

The man towers over her, the weapon idling against his meaty right thigh and bunching the fabric of his modified trousers.  Fenris might have mistaken their short length for an ill-fitting hand-me-down had the lines not been so clean.

His adornments could not match Danarius and his tailored robes, but Fenris could see the man echoed in his harsh jaw and harsher mouth.  A mouth which curls with the pleasure of pinning a butterfly beneath glass just to watch it twitch.

"You are a coward," Fenris tells the man.

Neither the man nor the girl acknowledge him.  They never do.

"What'd your mom say about cussin'?" the man reprimands.

Fenris watches her fists clench and realizes he has clenched his own.  He forces the digits to uncurl.

No use bloodying them again.


	3. The Wingfic AU with Fenris: Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein most Thedosians are born with wings, so people without, people like us…really don’t do too well.
> 
> Timeline: An AU of the Spirit Girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for discrimination, treatment of people as property, conditioning, implied sexual assault (both past and future), and all around skeevy behavior.

"This it?"  The man eyes her over his pointed nose.  "Almost not worth the cost of upkeep."

She stares back, but keeps her mouth shut.  Her busted lip makes speaking hurt, anyway.

"It's in good condition," Karras insists, jerking her forward.

She grits her teeth against the pressure of his sausage fingers digging into her upper arm.  Her wrists already ache from the tension of the binds, but her hands still curl into fists.

"For a Clipped,"  the man counters.

His hand strikes for her back, his fingers bunching the fabric between her shoulder blades.  Her responding hiss and flinch come only half-forced this time.  A lack of reaction only made things worse.

Something else she had learned the hard way.

"It's still got all the other parts," Karras points out, jaw clenching.

She tenses at the tic, at the way his grip turns lax around her arm.  The fear of the Unknown that this new man represents pales in comparison to what she knows will await her if she botches another deal.

Karras meets her gaze almost as if he heard the thought and she jerks her head down, forcing her body to go lax in an echo of him.  The instinctual shift of her body to accommodate him makes her sick, but still less so than the thought of keeping his gaze.

The man hums and she curls forward more in an unconscious mimic of presentation.  The man chuckles, his sweaty locks swinging with the shake of his head.

"Alright, Karras."  The man's voice sounds almost warm.  "I'll take it.  But next time, I expect stock of a better quality."

Karras gives her arm a little squeeze of praise and she shudders out a breath.

"Of course."  She cringes at the telltale displacement of air behind her.  "I've got a new shipment coming in next week.  I'll save you first pick of the litter."

"See that you do."  Even the man's set begins to unfurl a little.  "Well, I best be off.  You know how my children get when I'm away too long."

The man tosses a small sack of coins to Karras and picks up her lead, draping the rope over his shoulder like Santa Claus.  She struggles to her tiptoes to lessen the strain on her arms, careful to avoid the feathers on either side of her.  Her expression remains dull as she wonders how long until the numbing starts, until it spreads to her shoulders.

Ah, the lament of the short.

Karras chuckles.

"You give Butterfly my best," Karras offers with a wink and an almost boyish grin.

The man hums again, but refrains from answering.  He tows her over to his wagon and she tenses at the cluster of trees on just the other side.  The rope feels tight and the man's grip remains true, but with enough force and surprise, she could make it.

"You would like Butterfly," the man says, almost as a counter to that thought. 

She stiffens, unable to avoid his gaze when he peers at her over his shoulder.  Still, her fists clench at the nerve of this man, to suppose that he could know what or who she might like.

"Karras certainly does."  The man's voice softens almost the same way Karras would go lax.  She tries not to panic over that realization.  She forces her fists to uncurl.  "And why wouldn't he?"

The man turns and swings the rope off his shoulder, removing the pull.  She doesn't know what to do with her arms.  A buzzing in her head urges her to keep them up, but they seem so heavy now.  He is facing her, but she could still run.  She could.

"The colors are nothing short of dazzling.  The texture... Oh, to feel them is to feel the smile of Andraste herself."  The man sighs with a wistful smile.  She feels nauseous.  "But there is a thing with butterflies."

The man's smile falls.

"The more you touch, the more you take."

The man stares into her eyes like he has insight into her soul.  She wants to shrivel up beneath it.

"Touch too much, and the butterfly can't fly anymore."

The man draws the lead forward and she can't stop, can't do anything but follow.  His hand curls into the fabric between her shoulder blades again, but this time, she can tell that he _knows_.

She starts to shake.

"That doesn't stop them from doing it though, does it?"  The man releases his grip in her shirt, drawing his fingers up her back.  "No, and some of them...some of them just can't resist plucking those little wings right out, can they?"

She stares over his shoulder at the cluster of trees.

"Can they?" the man grinds out, digging his nails into her back.

"N-no."  She exhales.  "I guess not."

The man retracts his hand from her back in favor of cradling her neck.  Her skin crawls, but she knows when to keep still.  She almost flinches when one of his wings brushes her other side.

_Don't look._

"Oh, but Butterfly will like you."  The man smiles.  "Nothing makes me happier than to see my children getting along."  The man's grip on her neck tightens, but his smile remains warm.  "You will get along, won't you?"

She stares over his shoulder at the cluster of trees, her gaze dull.

"Yes," she answers, and when he begins to frown, she once again curls forward in a mimic of presentation.

The man squeezes her neck in praise and the affection on his face might've made her vomit if the rush of relief didn't drown out everything else.

"My little Caterpillar..." the man sighs with a sickening sort of fondness.  "You are going to make an interesting addition to my collection."

"I wouldn't count on that," a gruff voice cuts in.

The man grunts and they blink down at the hand between them, the gaping hole that left scarce inches between those familiar gauntlets and her own chest.

That hollow relief that comes with pleasing a captor burns out of her like a fever.

The man's nails dig in where they still grip her neck, but she yanks herself backwards anyway, almost relishing the sharp pain of the scratches that follow.  Her wide eyes flit from that lyrium branded skin and white hair peeking just over his shoulder to the man's caving wings and she straightens her posture, standing to her full height with an ease she had almost been conditioned to forget.

 _Conditioned_.

She lurches forward before Fenris can pull his hand out, before the man can fall into the cozy arms of death, and she strikes between his legs with enough force to make her toes bruise.

The man whimpers and curls in on himself as much as he can with a hand in his chest, and she relishes that weak sound, the kind of sound a person makes when the pain becomes too deep to give proper voice to.

Fenris jerks at the noise and the short movement makes a quiet squelch, but he stalls.

She takes that as permission.

She sinks her fingers into that sweaty, greasy hair and she yanks the man's head back.  She wants to deliver a witty one-liner, something about butterflies and wings, something to entertain, but her mind blanks.  She doesn't feel up for entertainment at the moment.

So she settles on asking a question she might actually want an answer to.

"How does it feel?" she asks, voice low, but expression blank.  His glassy eyes stare up at her.  "How does it feel to have something shoved into you and something else yanked out?"

The man continues to stare up at her, quiet.

She yanks harder.

"How does it feel to be the one presenting now, you sick fuck?" she hisses through gritted teeth, and the fury, oh the fury brings tears to her eyes.

Fenris jerks his hand out and she releases her grip, stepping back to avoid the man's corpse as it falls to the ground.  Her hand feels dirty—actually her everywhere feels dirty—but she has learned to bury those issues, too.

...

"Are you hurt?"

She blinks down at the corpse at her feet.

"I'm fine."

"I am glad to hear it," Fenris says, crouching down.  She watches him rummage through the man's pockets, her gaze anchored on his hands.

The amount of effort it takes to shift her gaze toward his wings makes a distant, defiant part of her ache in grief. 

His large wings curl across his back like a blanket, the feathers an unnaturally brilliant white.  The array remain pristine, if a bit ruffled.  She shakes thoughts of Karras away before they can form, intent on remaining in the moment.  When his shoulders shift with his movements, she swears she sees a flash of blue in the muted sunlight.

"Thank you," she offers at last, returning her gaze to his face.  She sucks in a breath when she realizes he has been watching her.

He inclines his head. 

"You are free to return to your loved ones."  Fenris bends back over his findings, sifting through parchment.

She stands still, her arms loose at her sides.

"I don't have any."

Fenris looks up at that, stowing a few pieces away.


	4. The Basement AU: Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein the wall between two different realities thins enough to allow Fenris and Helena to take solace in each other during their imprisonment.
> 
> Timeline: Post Alone Quest (DA2, Act 3) and an AU of The Spirit Girl.

"You know, for a figment of my imagination, you're kind of poorly written," she muses.  Her knees remain scrunched toward her torso, despite the pervading wince Fenris has watched her make since she chose the position.

Fenris sighs, frowning as the air further dries his mouth.

"Don't get me wrong," she continues, "you aren't unbelievable.  I mean, I might've let it slide if I was reading someone else's fanfic, but..." her lips twist, "I guess I just thought I was a better writer than this."

"Drink your water before you begin to spout more nonsense," Fenris rasps.

"See?  That's exactly what I'm talking about."  She pushes a finger at him in a movement much too listless to call a jab.  "We both know this crap is probably poisoned."  She flaps a hand at the strange dish of water across from her in disgust.  "Not to mention undignified."

Fenris relaxes his weight further into the wall behind him.  He ignores the increasing ache as the cold stone leaches more warmth from his skin.

"Why would your captor waste the poison?" Fenris wonders.  The man makes no secret of his enjoyment in tormenting her.  Death would be a mercy.

She blinks.

"Drugged, then," she murmurs, staring off into some memory or thought he cannot reach.  "Another form of torture—making the victim complicit in the shitty stuff that happens to them."

Fenris tilts his head.  Her theory has merit.

"You haven't disposed of it," Fenris points out.  If coaxing her into partaking of the potion of her own volition is the game, then failure may result in a more direct approach.

Fenris tries not to recall how she folded when faced with that weapon.

"What if I get thirsty?" she wonders.

Fenris swallows, feeling his throat scrape.  The unopened casks around him seem to loom in the periphery of his gaze.

What if, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was a plastic dog dish.


	5. The Basement AU: Part IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein the wall between two different realities thins enough to allow Fenris and Helena to take solace in each other during their imprisonment.
> 
> Timeline: Post Alone Quest (DA2, Act 3) and an AU of The Spirit Girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for graphic violence and grave misunderstandings.

It has given up on mindless chatter in favor of weeping.

Fenris eases his head further into the cask he pried open, enjoying the echo of his slurping.  The wine coats his throat with the kind of itch inherent in drier blends.  He always could trust Danarius to tailor his punishments down to the minute detail.

Fenris refuses to beg or scream for the kind of respite such breaking would afford him.

Another stifled sniffle filters through the wood and Fenris clenches his fingers into rim.  The broken gasp which follows seems to shake the walls around him.  He whips his head out, the damp ends of his hair sticking to his cheeks and neck.

"Is this your latest attempt at manipulation?  Incessant weeping?" Fenris sneers.

Its weeping eases in volume, but its curled form shakes harder, its head still bend toward its chest.

"You will gain no pity from me, Demon," Fenris hisses, draping his arms across the rim of his cask.

This earns a choked gasp.

"Cease this display."

It continues.

Fenris remains poised over his cask.  The wine sits heavy in his stomach.

"Quiet," Fenris demands.

It does not.

Fenris eases up on shaky legs and staggers toward its crumpled form.  He will not endure another moment of this demon's attempts at trickery.  One of his feet drags and he steadies himself against a shelf to his right.  His hand curls around a broken bottle, relishing the bite of glass in his palm.

The thing hiccups on its next sob and Fenris throws the bottle.

Glass shatters upon impact with the wall beside it and Fenris watches it flinch back, uncurling to stare at him with wide, red-rimmed eyes.

A door slams open and her next flinch is much more violent as her head jerks toward the sound.

"You breaking my shit, you stupid bitch?" the man shouts and she scurries backwards on her hands, the shards of glass crunching beneath her.

Fenris watches the man drag her up the stairs by her hair and he screams alongside her, slamming his fists against the wall of stone between them until his hands ache and his prison grows silent once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canonically, I do not consider Fenris a violent drunk. His behavior in this chapter was shitty, but had very little to do with the wine.


	6. The Basement AU: Part V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein the wall between two different realities thins enough to allow Fenris and Helena to take solace in each other during their imprisonment.
> 
> Timeline: Post Alone Quest (DA2, Act 3) and an AU of The Spirit Girl.

Fenris sits, still and silent, pressing as far into the shadowed corner of his cell as he can.  He watches the man drag her back into the room, wrenching her arm when she stumbles down a stair.  She keeps her gaze directed at the floor before her.

The man shoves her down the last few steps and chuckles when she falls into the wall at the bottom.

"Watch out," the man cautions with a smug smile.

She says nothing.

The man retreats back up the stairs and the door clicks shut.  She stays pressed against the wall, just breathing.

Fenris eases to his feet after several long moments, but stalls when she turns and meets his gaze.

"Good," she murmurs, straightening.  "You're still here."

Fenris watches her stride forward.  Her right eye has swollen shut, the skin now a myriad of colors.  It takes much of his restraint not to step back.

She raises a hand and her palm settles on both stone and air.  This time, Fenris does stumble back.

"Jesus."  She presses her other hand to her mouth and takes her own step back, her uninjured eye fluttering in quick blinks.  Her gaze slides back to him.  "Did you get dizzy, too?"

"I—yes."  Fenris regains his footing and steps closer.

She hums and crosses her arms.  Her eye appears intact, barring the heavy weight of her lid and the discoloration.  The state of her ribs remains unclear beneath her odd tunic, but her stance still leaves the brunt of her weight to her right leg.

Fenris has the urge to ask after her palms.

"What are you doing?"

"Thinking," she murmurs, tucking a strand of unkempt hair behind her ear.  "I can see the wall and I know it's there, but it also isn't," she stresses, "And I mean, since you're not a hallucination..."

"You changed your mind," Fenris prompts.

Nevermind his own revelations.

"The bottle," she points out, raising an eyebrow.  "I might've chalked that up to a psychotic break,  but that fucker heard it and I've scoured this basement of mine a hundred times and I know it wasn't there before."

"I apologize."  Fenris swallows, gaze slipping to where the glass once lay.  The man had collected the shards hours ago and, for one unsettling moment, he had wondered if the man could see him, too.  "I had no idea—"

"It's fine."  She flaps a hand at him and almost rolls her eyes.

Fenris clenches his fists at her flippancy and takes another step closer.

"It is not fine.  I caused you undue harm."

"No, shithead up there did that," she points out, jerking a thumb toward the ceiling.  "I mean, don't throw anymore bottles because I really can't afford another eye to go out of commission..." she tilts her head and purses her lips, "...unless you wanna try hitting that asshole with a Molotov cocktail."

Fenris stares at her, furrowing his brows.

"Molotov?"

"Plus, you thought I was a demon and blah, blah, let's just move past it, okay?"

She tips her head at him, more earnest than Fenris can almost believe, and he finds himself nodding back after a moment, her chatter drawing a small smile to his lips.

"My name is Fenris."

Her lips purse into something of a smile in return.

"I'm Helena."  Helena hums and clears her throat.  "So.  Got any idea what this is about?" she wonders, waving at the wall-not-wall between them.

Fenris turns his gaze to the barrier, but his thoughts remain on the novelty of standing so close to his odd cellmate for quite some time.


End file.
